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5.02.2011

Atlanta, Part 2: Guns, Glitter and Youth

.Marketing Mondays will return next week. If you're jonesing for art biz info, the roundup posts from the past three weeks contain links to close to 40 posts from the MM archives. Clickhere,hereandhere.

In this post I continue my Atlanta report with Nancy Baker’s solo, New/Improved, and Mark Bercier’s solo, Youth. Both terrific shows are up at the Marcia Wood Gallery, along with my own Diamond Life, through May 28.

Orienting you: We look from the first gallery where my work is installed into the second, where we glimpse Nancy Baker's show, New/Improved

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New / Improved is in the second room of the Marcia Wood Gallery. Baker attacks the war machine and corporate greed with gears, grenades—and glitter. Her 21 Gun Salute consists of small framed collages of ordnance and five scintilating words that reference Charlton Heston’s iconic and oft-mocked stance, “I’ll give you my gun when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.” (He was speaking not as Moses but as the equally unlikely president of the NRA.) Baker effectively marries the glitter of Hollywood and the glamour of violence. Scary shit but, god, these collages are gorgeous!

Stepping inside the gallery, we see All Geared Up, left, and Please Stand By, both watercolor, glitter, collage on paper. (The gallery's terrace is visible through the back; we'll visit there in the next post)

Charnel, with the interlocking C’s of a certain French fashion house, is one of a series of subverted logos—consumerism intertwined witrh sex and death, or sometimes just a wicked sense of humor. I love them! (I have a small collage that includes the misappropriated logo, SexEd.) If you go to the gallery, ask to see Epiphany & Co, dripping with diamonds, eyeballs and a patch of familiar robin’s egg-blue, and Heresies, rife with pigs and kisses, the block letters of the subverted logo set into a chocolate-brown bar.

A panoramic last look before we walk back through the front gallery and onto the street, where we go next door to the Gallery Annex

On the street: The entry to the Marcia Wood Gallery, foreground. Next door, in the building on whose wall you see "Gowns," is Mark Bercier's solo show, Youth

Panoramic view of Mark Bercier's solo, Youth; all the work gouache on Rives paper

In the Annex, a gallery next door to the primary space, New Orleans artists and gallerist Mark Bercier shows Youth, a series of gouache-on-paper paintings of children on the brink of adulthood. Family friends, they look directly at the viewer with a combination of confidence and utter vulnerability. Bercier’s style may recall Alice Neel, but instead of pain there’s joy and the exuberance of becoming. A grid of six studies for the portraits, visible at left in the pano above, deepened my engagement with the paintings.

Max Head Study, 2010

Caroline Head Study, 2010﻿

Maya Head Study, 2010

Maddy, Aidan and Massey, each 2010, gouache on Rives, 50 x 40 inches

Maddy, portrait, above, and Head Study

In Atlanta, Part 3: On Thursday, a visit to The Goat Farm, Lunch, The High Museum, and back to the gallery

2 comments:

I love Nancy Baker's work! The conflation of war, sex and branding with the illusion of glamor that anoints all of them is powerful stuff. The addition of all the flowers and frills and glitter makes it all seem like the happy, fun-filled world that we don't live in. Well done, Nancy! Thanks for posting, Joanne. Beautiful and provocative work!

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Artists Choose Artists

Artist Annell Livingston writes about my work for the new blog, Vasari 21, founded by Ann Landi. Click pic for info and a link

Recent Solo: "Silk Road"

"Joanne Mattera: The Silk Road Series" was at Kenise Barnes Fine Art in Larchmont, New York, May-July. Some paintings are available for viewing at the gallery. Click pic for gallery info

Recent: August Geometry

More than just a summer show. Au-gust: adjective, respected and impressive. At the Marcia Wood Gallery, Atlanta. Click pic for info

Recent

I'm having a great year of exhibitions and catalogs. This volume, published by Space Gallery, Denver, on the occasion of the exhibition, "Pattern: Geometric|Organic," is viewable online and available for sale as a hard-copy volume. Click pic for exhibition info and a link to the catalog. That's my "Chromatic Geometry 29" on the cover

James Panero Reviews Doppler Shift

Writing in The New Criterion, Panero calls Doppler Shift "a smart group show, " noting the work of "artists who interest me most these days." There's a nice shout out to Mary Birmingham, the curator; to Mel Prest, who originated the concept; and to me, among others. Click pic for the review

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"Textility," curated by Mary Birmingham and myself for the Visual Art Center of New Jersey, Summit (where Birmingham is the chief curator), looked at contemporary painting, sculpture and work on paper in which textile elements were referenced or employed. The exhibition is over, but you can see this exhibition on line. Click on the links below to read and see more.

Review of Textility

Click pic to access review. Then click on page images to enlarge them for legibility

Stephen Haller: Remembering Morandi

When he was a young man, the New York art dealer Stephen Haller had a brief but life-changing friendship with Giorgio Morandi, who was nearing the end of his days. Click pic below for story.

Haller holding a photograph of himself with Morandi in the early Sixties. Click pic for story

Followers

My book, The Art of Encaustic Painting, was published by Watson-Guptill in 2001. It's the first commercially published book on contemporary encaustic. There are three sections: history, with images of the famed Greco-Egyptian Fayum portraits; a gallery of contemporary painting and sculpture (including the work of Jasper Johns, Kay WalkingStick, Heather Hutchison, Johannes Girardoni and myself), and technical information, including an interview with Michael Duffy, a conservator at the Museum of Modern Art.